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If you are an area business owner, RiverView Health can help you limit the number of injuries in your workplace. It’s true. RiverView’s Occupational Health services can help keep your employees safer, improve productivity, and reduce healthcare costs.

What is Occupational Health? It is an area of medicine that promotes health and safety within the workplace. Its services identify employee risks and provide solutions to prevent work-related injuries.

“The program ensures the employee will be able to complete all physically demanding job tasks safely,’’ shared Jonah Kratochvil, RiverView occupational therapist. “Education is provided for proper lifting techniques and workplace safety throughout assessments, reducing the prevalence of work injuries relating to specific job tasks. It can also be beneficial for recommendations and modifications to be made to the employer for an individual who may have difficulty with certain tasks.’’

With over 30 years of experience, RiverView’s Occupational Health Team is a leader in meeting employer’s needs and optimizing employee safety throughout the employment lifecycle. RiverView’s Occupational Therapy Team, comprised of Kratochvil, Michelle Moen, Maddie Englestad, Stacy Buschette, Marrisa Jevne, and Joan Bohm, leads the Occupational Health program.

According to Kratochvil, one of the most common services through the program is pre-work screening. After a job offer, the employee works with a RiverView therapist to ensure they can complete all of the physical job demands safely. RiverView does pre-work screens for American Crystal Sugar, New Flyer, Transystems, Spee-Dee Delivery, Eickhof Columbaria Inc., RiverView Health, and others.

In addition to pre-work screening, other Occupational Health services include:

Functional Job Analysis: A skilled service of obtaining objective data, including physical measurement of repetitions, forces, times, angles, postures, and work methods, to determine the physical demands required for a job. Functional Job Analysis can be used to identify safety concerns and develop the following:

• Functional Job Description
• Pre-Work Screens
• Job rotation, modified duty, or transitional work programs
• New employee educational programs
• Fitness and conditioning programs
• Accommodations for disabled employees

Functional Job Descriptions: A tool developed after completing a Functional Job Analysis to enhance the job description and reinforce hiring requirements. This service includes information on the job objectives, clothing, equipment, tools, hours of work, essential job functions, and critical physical demands.

Work Ability Screen or Fit for Duty Testing: An evaluation to identify and develop temporary work-related restrictions following an injury. Evaluations can be repeated throughout the employee’s recovery to update work restrictions as appropriate.

Functional Capacity Evaluation: An assessment of an employee’s physical abilities 90+ days after an injury to determine if they can meet the physical demands of their job. If they cannot, the results of the Functional Capacity Evaluation can be compared to other Functional Job Descriptions to generate an appropriate “job match.”

Stretch Program: A custom program for injury prevention that prepares employees for the physical demands and postures most often used during the job.

Education: An onsite service that provides employee education on employer-requested topics. Topics can include safe-lifting techniques, back health, ergonomic desk set-up, and more.

Ergonomic Consultation: An onsite service to assess employee workstations, identify ergonomic missteps, and provide recommendations to optimize the work environment for injury prevention. This service can be utilized preemptively or as an action plan following an employee injury.

If you are looking for ways to promote and maintain the highest degree of physical, mental, and social well-being for your employees, call your nearest RiverView Rehab Services Department for more information. Occupational Health is offered out of Rehab Services locations in Crookston (281.9595), East Grand Forks (773.1390) and Red Lake Falls (253.4606).

Pictured above: Jonah Kratochvil, MOTR/L, and Stacy Buschette, MOTR/L, go over proper Occupational Health techniques.
Below: Marrisa Jevne, COTA, shares workplace safety information.